


I Am Machine

by kb928



Series: Apoptosis [1]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Angst, Character Study, Dark, Gen, Pre-Hell Theo, Pre-Slash, Song Lyrics
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-17
Updated: 2018-02-17
Packaged: 2019-03-20 04:29:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,023
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13709844
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kb928/pseuds/kb928
Summary: Theo was created for one purpose. He knew this, and he accepted his role.But sometimes, late at night while he listens to the screams of the newest experiments, he wishes things were different.Inspired by Three Day Grace's "I Am Machine"





	I Am Machine

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by Three Day Grace's "I Am Machine"
> 
> Setting is primarily through Season 5

_Here's to being human_  
_All the pain and suffering_  
_There's beauty in the bleeding_  
_At least you feel something_

Theo tracks Scott Mccall to the high school, observing from afar as the True Alpha and his female kitsune companion flirt in the rain. He watches as they kiss, the torrential downpour doing nothing to diminish the stench of love radiating from the two. He wants to gag, but stops himself, wary of giving away his position just yet.

 

He knows what’s coming next.

 

Theo watches as Belasko taunts Scott, easily taking him down before he turns his attention to the sword-wielding kitsune. He wordlessly watches her fall, too.

 

Theo can smell the fear oozing from the two teenagers. He closes his eyes as he inhales deeper, feeling drunk from the stench. The pain, the suffering, the coppery scent of Scott’s blood. It’s intoxicating, arousing. They’re worried for each other, he can tell even from here, and he wonders briefly what it must feel like to actually _feel_ something for someone else. To care about something besides your own survival.

 

He lets the thought go, because he’s not made for caring about things like that. Those thoughts serve him no purpose.

 

A small, unseen smile ghosts over his lips as he prepares for his entrance. It’s Theo’s turn to save the day; to be the hero of the hero.

  
_I wish I knew what it was like_  
_To care enough to carry on_  
_I wish I knew what it was like_ _  
To find a place where I belong, but_

 

Theo wasn’t the hero, having overestimated Belasko’s fighting skills and underestimating Scott McCall’s Alpha power.

 

His plans to infiltrate the pack aren’t going as smoothly as planned, either, partially due to Stiles’s unexpected suspicion of him.

 

Sometimes, as he lays in his bed at night in the damp tunnels, listening to the muffled screams of the Dread Doctors latest victim, Theo wants to give up. It’s hard pretending he cares, to put his mask on everyday and act like it’s his own heart beating in his chest and not his dead sister’s. He gets why Stiles doesn't trust him, because Theo doesn't trust anyone. But it still annoys him, making him work twice as hard as he anticipated to reach his goal. 

 

It’s hard pretending like he actually feels something for these people, this pack he barely knows.

 

The Geneticist told him once that humans form their strongest bonds with one another through emotional connections.

 

Theo tells Donovan that real pain is emotional pain. And he assumes it's true, based on what he's seen so far from those around him. But he doesn't actually  _know_  ,because he's never cared for someone other than himself. At least not since he watched his sister freeze to death. 

 

It’s hard connecting with people when he doesn’t feel anything.

 

He’s a great actor, there’s no doubt about that. But it wears him out, day after day, trying to remember which emotion is appropriate for each situation.

 

He isn’t designed to feel.

 

It’s hard spending time with these people who mesh so well together, who clearly care about one another. He’s the outsider; the one who will do anything or say anything to get them to like him. He tries to feel good when Melissa McCall praises him for saving Lydia's life with the tourniquet at the Sheriff's Station. But he knows he did it because he needed her for his plan to work. He needed the pack to trust him and what better way to appear trustworthy than by saving one of their lives? She was useful to him alive, otherwise, he wouldn't have batted an eye as he watched the life drain from her body.

  
He sees them with each other, laughing, joking, smiling, and he wonders what it feels like belong. To find a place in the pack, to have someone care about him when he’s hurt. To want to hangout with him just because. To trust him. To genuinely _like_ him, the real him, whoever that is. It looks so easy, to fit in, but he thinks it’s the hardest thing he’s ever done.

It’s hard pretending like he wouldn’t kill every single one of them in a heartbeat if it meant he got to live another day. He’d slash their throats, rip their hearts out, or gut them all with his claws. Anything to survive, anything to keep his borrowed heart beating in his chest. He was a survivor.

He sees Liam taking Hayden’s pain as he kisses her, and he knows that’s another thing he will never be able to do; to care enough about someone besides himself to draw their pain into his. It’s unfathomable, and something in him aches as he watches Scott’s beta do something he's incapable of. Could Liam do that to him? He snorts at the idea. Only humans feel pain, and Theo? Well, he’s neither fully human nor supernatural.

He’s a mutt. A science experiment. A cheap knock-off of a werewolf. Theo doesn’t fit in with humans, and he doesn’t fit in the werewolves.

 

He doesn’t belong.  

 

A failure.

Theo knows he’ll never have a true place in the pack, though. Because as Scott reminds him while Theo is driving his claws through the soft flesh of the Alpha’s abdomen; he is barely human.

  
_I am machine_  
_I never sleep_  
_I keep my eyes wide open_  
_I am machine_  
_A part of me_ _  
Wishes I could just feel something_

 

Just because Theo _can’t_ feel anything for someone else, it doesn’t mean he doesn’t _want_ to feel something.

Theo was created by the Dread Doctors to fulfill one purpose; to become the Beast of Gévaudan, the ultimate creature of death and destruction.

 

Theo was a failure, in that regard, but he was the first chimera to survive the experimentation, the first success for the Dread Doctors. The Pathologist and the Surgeon argued he should be killed, regardless, but between his own determination for survival and the Geneticist taking pity on him, he was allowed to live as their pawn.

 

As he grew up in the sewers of whichever city the Dread Doctors were currently occupying, the Geneticist spent her time away from their experiments to teach him things. To mold him into the _almost_ perfect killer, eliminating the parts of him that made him human….the parts that makes him _weak_ , she said.

 

She taught him to mask his emotions, calming his heart rate and eliminating the release of chemosignals. As he got more adept at that, she guided him through creating fake emotions so he could fool other supernatural creatures into thinking he actually felt something.

 

She also taught him about the strengths and weaknesses of other supernatural creatures, handing him book after book filled to the brim with the knowledge of the occult and quizzing him each night about anything and everything. Theo still went to school, typically picking a different name and backstory in each city, scoping out candidates for their experiments. The other Doctors ignored him, never telling him what they were working on, but the Geneticist secretly filled him in, sometimes even allowing him to take part in her work as he got older and excelled in her paranormal science course.  

 

The Geneticist taught him how to fight, first showing him basic technique before locking him in a cage with whatever supernatural creature that was unfortunate enough to stumble into their clutches. She recorded each fight, so afterwards as his wounds stitched themselves together under her watchful eye, she could critique his performance, pointing out the flaws and occasionally noting things that impressed her.

 

Theo remembers the first cage fight he won, claws covered with the Wendigo’s warm blood as it dripped in large, red droplets onto the floor of the lab. He was twelve years old, short for his age, but more muscular than his peers due to his training. He looked up, using the clean part of his hand to wipe the sweaty hair from his face, beaming as he found her masked face watching him.

 

“Conceit is the quicksand of success,” she had said knowingly, gazing off over his shoulder.

 

Confused, his younger self mulled over her words, turning around just in time to dart out of the way as the not quite dead Wendigo attempted to wrap his jagged teeth around Theo’s leg.

 

Theo wishes, as his plans crumble around him, he absorbed her lesson better.     
    
  
_Here's to being human_  
_Taking it for granted_  
_The highs and lows of living_ _  
To getting second chances_

 

After failing to get Liam to kill Scott, Theo’s chances of survival were dwindling.

 

Everything had fallen into place. The pack was in tatters, and Theo had trapped an enraged Liam with a poisoned Scott in the library. Proud of his current success and selfishly believing the rest of his plan was flawless, Theo left the library to taunt Stiles. His pride shattered his plan, leaving him once again packless and powerless as Scott lived up to his True Alpha status.

 

But Lydia’s memories of the Nemeton and the Dread Doctors serum gave him a new chance at being an Alpha. Sure he didn’t have the Alpha power, _yet_ , but he had a pack of followers, of people indebted to him for saving their lives.

 

Together, they had a second chance at life. Together, they belonged.  
  
  
_I wish I knew what it was like_  
_To care about what's right or wrong_  
_I wish someone could help me find_  
_Find a place where I belong_

It’s hard to lead a pack when all you care about is power and personal gain.

 

He made poor choices. He knows he was a terrible Alpha, using fear and manipulation to rule. But it was the only thing he knew how to do. The Dread Doctors made him this way, injecting him with serum after serum, performing countless surgeries to morph him into their dream creation.

 

He was a machine. A killer, a murderer. All he knew was death.

 

Theo knew right from wrong. He knew helping the pack defeat the Beast was right; he also knew that helping them defeat the Beast so he could steal its power was wrong.

 

But he doesn't care.  
  
  
_I am machine_ _  
__A part of me_  
_Wishes I could just feel something_

He feels nothing as he turns on Josh, electricity flowing between them as the other chimera tries to fight him off. He feels nothing as he kisses Tracy, mirroring the kiss he witnessed weeks ago between Liam and Hayden in the back of his truck. At that moment, he doesn’t intend to kill her, but she reminds him of his failures, reminds him that he is weak. So he steals her life, his most loyal pack member, because adding her power to his own, makes him stronger.

  
And yet, he still feels nothing.  
  
  
_It wasn't supposed to be this way_  
_We were meant to feel the pain_  
_I don't like what I am becoming_

Theo waits for his neck to heal after Deucalion breaks it, using the unexpected free time to indulge in some introspective reflection.

 

He can’t say he’s really proud of what he’s become.

 

There’s no place for...things...like him in the world. One part human, one part coyote, one part wolf, three parts abomination. A failed science experiment who can’t successfully achieve even one of his goals.

 

If you look up the word "failure" in the dictionary, one of the main definitions is "a lack of success."

 

The Dread Doctors were right.

 

He was a failure.

 

And yet, he couldn’t bring himself to care.

 

_Wish I could just feel something_

 

The first emotion Theo truly feels since watching his sister die is fear; pure, unimaginable, mind numbing terror as Kira’s sword penetrates the ground and his once dead sister slowly crawls out.

 

Theo shamelessly pleads for his life, begging for Scott McCall to be the hero once more, even though deep down, he knows it’s pointless.

 

Because monsters like him don’t have heroes.

 

As the ground closes above him, Theo wishes he was more careful what he wished for.

**Author's Note:**

> Let me know what you think! There should be a sequel of sorts following this by the end of the week.


End file.
